The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 raw materials more
than doubled in the past decade, as gold had the longest string
of annual advances since at least 1920. Red Kite joins Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley in forecasting a commodity
“super cycle” will continue, while Citigroup Inc. analysts
said in November it ended because China is growing more slowly
and supply has caught up.

“I don’t think it’s over,” Jansen said in an interview in
Shanghai on Jan. 13. “It’s just not as exciting as it was.”

Tin, the best performer last year among six industrial
metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, gaining 22 percent,
climbed to an 11-month high of $25,100 a metric ton yesterday.
Copper gained 4.4 percent last year and traded at $7,982 a ton
at 4:23 p.m. in Shanghai. The metal is in a moderate uptrend,
although it will fall back “quite quickly” this year, he said.

“Supply growth is expected to be quite strong this year,
and that will meet most of the demand, if not all of the demand
improvement,” he said, referring to copper.

China Fundamentals

The company is bearish about aluminum and lead because
China is largely self-sufficient, and nickel because the country
is importing less, Jansen said. China, the largest user of
industrial metals, accounting for more than 40 percent global
consumption, is also the biggest producer refined metals.

China’s gross domestic product expanded 7.4 percent in the
third quarter of 2012 from a year earlier, the slowest since the
first quarter of 2009. Data released on Jan. 11 showed consumer
prices gained more than expected in December, limiting the room
for easing, and a report to be released on Jan. 18 may show
fourth-quarter GDP accelerated to 7.8 percent, according to a
Bloomberg News survey.

“I’m not really worried about China,” said Jansen.
“China’s growth is enough to feed through quite strong demand
increase for individual metals.” Physical consumption in the
U.S., the second-largest user of industrial metals, is also
expected to improve this year, he added.

Platinum, Palladium

“It’s still bullish in the sense that demand stays strong,
but we’re in the short-term period where supply is quite
strong,” Jansen said. “In a few years, I can see it being very
different again.”

The S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index gained 0.3 percent
last year, the smallest annual gain since 2008, when it tumbled
43 percent. A sub-index of base metals added 0.2 percent in 2012,
while that of precious metals rose 2.4 percent.

“We don’t think base metals are going to go up much this
year,” Jansen said. “We’re more bullish on precious metals,
particularly platinum and palladium.”

If central banks start to unwind unconventional easing
policies, it will be less bullish for precious metals, while
industrial demand, led by record automobile sales this year and
supply disruptions, will support platinum and palladium,
according to Jansen.